Espatier
Warships are very expensive, and always loaded with something valuable. And many times, it is better to go aboard and capture or subdue the starship rather than destroy it - and sometimes it's actually easier to do and more decisive. To these ends and many more, Espatiers exist. Espatiers are specially trained in the art of boarding and engaging in combat in the unique environment of a starship's innards. But the word alone does not tell the whole story; there are many different types of espatiers. One example are those employed by military organizations, including the FFEL. In the FFEL these espatiers are drawn from a mix of conscripts and volunteers and sent to a training field on an asteroid or on a starship. They engage in rigorous physical training in order to acclimate themselves to a starship's environment, which is microgravity with tight corridors submerged in Buoyancy Fluid, sometimes being trained while en route to a deployment zone. Such espatiers, that is, those drawn from people born on planets, tend to be only somewhat better than ordinary soldiers when boarding despite their rehearsals. There are also espatiers made up of Starborne, which have a reputation for being the best on the mercenary market. The soldiers of an Asteroid Nomad group are also very capable and feared. Equipment The environment which espatiers fight in determines their equipment to a great extent. Buoyancy fluid bends light too much for laser weapons to be practical, and so Beamers are tossed aside in favor of coilguns. Typically, these are coil-carbines, fitted with bayonets. A unique piece of equipment used almost exclusively by espatier companies is the Trident, a very simple bladed polearm used to thrust through the fluid and cause gruesome wounds. There are many trident designs, almost as many as there are espatiers themselves. Most commonly, espatiers do not wear armour, but may sometimes wear Soft Armour if they're doing well. Hard armour such as that present in cuirasses and helmets tend to be forgone but do rarely show up in espatier companies that are specialized to work with it. While it does inhibit movement and mobility to a greater extent than many espatiers feel is smart, the main advantage is that it renders bladed weapons like tridents and bayonets totally useless against any part of the body protected by the armour. Some espatiers feel that this benefit outweighs its drawbacks while swimming in buoyancy fluid. Rather than smoke grenades, espatiers use ink 'grenades' to provide cover in open spaces and conceal their movements. Conventional explosive weapons are not favored because the damage they cause in tight, water-filled spaces is hard to predict and control, but they do appear at times. To get into the starship in the first place, espatiers' boarding pods are equipped with powerful diamond drills. As the starship detects intrusion and shuts valves to keep boarders out, most of the time they must also carry blowtorches and power welders in order to get access to new areas of the starship. technicians may also accompany the boarding party and hack into the Nervous Mainframe to expedite this process. Vehicles and support weapons such as are almost never used. Boarding Pods Boarding pods are in principle rather similar to dropships, except that while dropships carry troops and descend to the surface of a planet, boarding pods carry espatiers to other starships and attempt to pierce their hull with diamond drills. Usually they are fired from a starship's coil-catapults and/or launch tubes carrying 80-120 (dependent on model) espatiers on a straight-line trajectory towards the target starship. Once close enough they can use the pod's limited maneuvering capability (typically small q-thrusters) to steer it into the hull of the target while avoiding point-defense, and the boarding pod's resilient structure and materials are able to keep it in one piece on impact. The diamond drill works to try and get through the hull but tends to get shaved off as it goes deeper. Because of this, they cannot typically get through armoured belts, and the drillhead must be replaced before the pod can be used again. Whether the boarding operation was successful or not, the pods can be 'plucked' from the exterior by technicians, or in emergencies such as retreats and mission aborts, can use their limited thrust power to escape - however this is unadvisable as they have poor acceleration and will be sitting ducks for the ship's very nearby point-defense weapon systems.